HUANCAVELI`CA (104), a dep. of Peru, lies within the region of the
Cordilleras, has rich silver and quicksilver mines; the capital (4),
bearing the same name, is a mining town 150 m. SE. of Lima.
HUB OF THE UNIVERSE, a name humorously given by Wendell Holmes to
Boston, or rather the State House of the city.
HUBER, FRANCIS, naturalist, born at Geneva; made a special study of
the habits of bees, and recorded the results in his "Observations sur les
Abeilles" (1750-1831).
HUBERT, ST., bishop of Liège and Maestricht, the patron-saint of
huntsmen; was converted when hunting on Good Friday by a milk-white stag
appearing in the forest of Ardennes with a crucifix between its horns;
generally represented in art as a hunter kneeling to a crucifix borne by
a stag (656-728).
HUBERT DE BURGH, Earl of Kent, chief justiciary of England under
King John and Henry III.; had charge of Prince Arthur, but refused to put
him to death; was present at Runnymede at the signing of Magna Charta;
_d_. 1234.
HUC, a French missionary, born at Toulouse; visited China and
Thibet, and wrote an account of his experiences on his return
(1813-1860).
HUDDERSFIELD (96), a busy manufacturing town in the West Riding of
Yorkshire, is favourably situated in a coal district on the Colne, 26 m.
NE. of Manchester; is substantially built, and is the northern centre of
the "fancy trade" and woollen goods; cotton, silk, and machine factories
and iron-founding are also carried on on a large scale.
HUDIBRAS, a satire by Samuel Butler on the Puritans, published in
1663, born of the reaction that set in after the Restoration.
HUDSON, in New York State, one of the most picturesque of North
American rivers, rises amid the Adirondack Mountains, and from Glen's
Fall flows S. to New York Bay, having a course of 350 m.; is navigable
for steamboats as far as Albany, 145 m. from its mouth. It has valuable
fisheries.
HUDSON, GEORGE, the Railway King, originally a linen-draper in York,
the great speculator in the construction and extension of railways, in
connection with which he made a huge fortune; acquired civic honours, and
was nearly having a statue raised to his honour, but certain frauds being
exposed he fell into disgrace and embarrassment, and died in London; he
was elected thrice over Lord Mayor of York, and represented Sunderland in
Parliament from 1845 to 1859 (1800-1871).
HUDSON, HENRY, English navigator; made three unsuccessful efforts to
discover a north-east passage, then turned his course north-westward, and
discovered in 1610 the river, strait, and bay which bear his name; his
sailors in his last expedition in 1611 mutinying, set him and eight
others adrift in an open boat, and though an expedition was sent in quest
of him, he was nowhere to be found.
HUDSON BAY, an inland sea in North America, 400 m. long and 100 m.
wide, communicating with the Atlantic; discovered by Hudson in 1610.
HUDSON BAY COMPANY, a joint-stock company founded in 1760 to obtain
furs and skins from North America, under charter granted by Charles II.,
the possessions of which were in 1869 incorporated in the Dominion of
Canada.
HUÉ (30), capital of the French protectorate Annam, on the Hué, 10
m. above its mouth, is strongly fortified with walls and a citadel.
HUELVA (19), a thriving seaport in Spain, 68 m. SW. of Seville,
between the mouths of the Odiel and Tinto; fisheries and the exportation
of copper, manganese, quicksilver, and wine are the chief industries.
HUERTA, GARCIA DE LA, a Spanish poet, was royal librarian in Madrid;
wrote tragedy of "Raguel," thought of very highly (1729-1797).
HUESCA (13), an interesting old Spanish town, 58 m. NE. of
Saragossa; has picturesque old churches, a university, and a palace;
manufactures linen and leather.
HUET, PIERRE DANIEL, a learned French prelate, born at Caen; a pupil
of Descartes; associated with Bossuet as scholar, and editor of Origen
(1630-1721).
HUG, LEONHARD, a Catholic theologian and biblical scholar, author of
an "Introduction to the New Testament" (1765-1846).
HUGH CAPET, the first of the Capetian dynasty of France, son of Hugh
Capet, Count of Paris; proclaimed king in 987; his reign was a troubled
one by the revolt of the very party that had raised him to the throne,
and who refused to own his supremacy; Adelbert, a count of Périgueux, had
usurped the titles of Count of Poitiers and of Tours, and the king,
sending a messenger to ask "Who made you count?" got for answer the
counter-challenge "Who made you king?" (946-996).
HUGHENDEN, a parish in Buckinghamshire, in the Chiltern district, 2
m. N. of High Wycombe; is interesting as the seat of Hughenden Manor, for
many years the residence of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.
HUGHES, THOMAS, author of "Tom Brown's School-days," born at
Uffington, Berks; was at Rugby in Dr. Arnold's time, graduated at Oxford,
and was called to the bar in 1848; his famous story of Rugby school life,
"Tom Brown's School-days," was published in 1856, and was followed by
"Tom Brown at Oxford" and other stories and biographies; he entered
Parliament in 1865, and in 1882 became a County Court Judge; throughout
his life he was keenly interested in social questions and the betterment
of the working-classes (1832-1896).
HUGO, VICTOR-MARIE, a famous French poet and novelist, born at
Besançon; as a boy he accompanied his father, a general in Joseph
Bonaparte's army, through the campaigns in Italy and Spain; at 14 he
produced a tragedy, and six years later appeared his "Odes et Ballades";
in 1827 was published his famous tragedy "Cromwell," which placed him at
the head of the Romanticists, and in "Hernani" (1830) the departure from
the old classic novels was more emphatically asserted; his superabundant
genius continued to pour forth a quick succession of dramas, novels,
essays, and poems, in which he revealed himself one of the most potent
masters of the French language; he was admitted to the French Academy,
and in 1845 was created a peer; he engaged in politics first as a
Royalist and next as a Democrat, fled to Brussels after the _coup
d'état_; subsequently he established himself in Jersey and then in
Guernsey, where he wrote his great novels "Les Misérables," "Les
Travailleurs de la Mer," etc.; he returned to France in 1870, engaged in
politics again, became a senator, and continued to produce works with
undiminished energy; his writings were in the first instance a protest
against the self-restraint and coldness of the old classic models, but
were as truly a faithful expression of his own intense and assertive
egoism, and are characteristic of his school in their exaggerated
sentiment and pervading self-consciousness (1802-1885).
HUGUENOTS, a name formerly given to the Protestants of France,
presumed to be a corruption of the German word _eingenossen_, i. e.
sworn confederates, the history of whom and their struggles and
persecutions fills a large chapter in the history of France, a cause
which was espoused at the first by many of the nobles and the best
families in the country, but all along in disfavour at Court.
HULL, or KINGSTON-UPON-HULL (260), a flourishing river-port in
the E. Riding of Yorkshire, at the junction of the Hull with the Humber,
42 m. SE. of York; is an old town, and has many interesting churches,
statues, and public buildings; is the third port of the kingdom; has
immense docks, is the principal outlet for the woollen and cotton goods
of the Midlands, and does a great trade with the Baltic and Germany; has
flourishing shipbuilding yards, rope and canvas factories, sugar
refineries, oil-mills, etc., and is an important centre of the east coast
fisheries.
HULLAH, JOHN, professor of music, born in Worcester; did much to
popularise music in England (1812-1884).
HULSEAN LECTURES, fruits of a lectureship tenable for one year,
founded by Rev. John Hulse, of St. John's College, in 1789; delivered
annually to the number of four, bearing on revealed religion.
HUMANIST, one who at the Revival of Letters upheld the claims of
classical learning in opposition to the supporters of the scholastic
philosophy.
HUMANITARIANS, a name given to those who maintain the simple
humanity of Christ to the denial of his divinity; also to those who view
human nature as sufficient for itself apart from all supernatural
guidance and aid.
HUMBERT I., king of Italy, son of Victor Emmanuel, whom he succeeded
in 1878; took while crown prince an active part in the movement for
Italian unity, and distinguished himself by his bravery; _b_. 1844.
HUMBOLDT, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH ALEX., BARON VON, great traveller and
naturalist, born in Berlin; devoted all his life to the study of nature
in all its departments, travelling all over the Continent, and in 1800,
with AIMÉ BONPLAND (q. v.) for companion, visiting S. America,
traversing the Orinoco, and surveying and mapping out in the course of
five years Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico, the results of
which he published in his "Travels"; his chief work is the "Kosmos," or
an account of the visible universe, in 4 vols., originally delivered as
lectures in Paris in the winter of 1827-28; he was a friend of Goethe,
who held him in the highest esteem (1769-1859).
HUMBOLDT, KARL WILHELM VON, an eminent statesman and philologist,
born at Potsdam, elder brother of the preceding; represented Prussia at
Rome and Vienna, but devoted himself chiefly to literary and scientific
pursuits; wrote on politics and æsthetics as well as philology, and
corresponded with nearly all the literary grandees of Germany
(1767-1835).
HUME, DAVID, philosopher and historian, born in Edinburgh, the
younger son of a Berwickshire laird; after trial of law and mercantile
life gave himself up to study and speculation; spent much of his life in
France, and fraternised with the sceptical philosophers and
encyclopedists there; his chief works, "Treatise on Human Nature" (1739),
"Essays" (1741-42), "Principles of Morals" (1751), and "History of
England" (1754-61); his philosophy was sceptical to the last degree, but
from the excess of it provoked a reaction in Germany, headed by Kant,
which has yielded positive results; he found in life no connecting
principle, no purpose, and had come to regard it as a restless aimless,
heaving up and down, swaying to and fro on a waste ocean of blind
sensations, without rational plot or counterplot, God or devil, and had
arrived at an absolutely _non-possumus_ stage, which, however, as hinted,
was followed by a speedy and steady rebound, in speculation at all
events; Hume's history has been characterised by Stopford Brooke as clear
in narrative and pure in style, but cold and out of sympathy with his
subject, as well as inaccurate; personally, he was a guileless and kindly
man (1711-1776).
HUME, JOSEPH, a politician, born in Montrose; studied medicine, and
served as a surgeon under the East India Company in India, made his
fortune, and came home; adopted the political principles of Bentham and
entered Parliament, of which he continued a prominent member till his
death; he was an ardent reformer, and lived to see many of the measures
he advocated crowned with success (1777-1855).
HUMOUR, distinct from wit, and defined as "a warm, tender,
fellow-feeling with all that exists," as "the sport of sensibility and,
as it were, the playful, teasing fondness of a mother for a child" ... as
"a sort of inverse sublimity exalting into our affections what is below
us,... warm and all-embracing as the sun."
HUNDRED DAYS, the name given to the period between Napoleon's return
from Elba and his abdication, from Mar. 10 to June 28, 1815, after
Waterloo.
HUNDYADES JOHN CORVINUS, a Hungarian captain of the 14th century, a
formidable foe of the Turks.
HUNGARY (18,556), the eastern part of Austro-Hungary, including
Hungary proper, Transylvania, Croatia, and Slavonia, and, except in
military and diplomatic matters and customs dues, with a considerable
amount of self-government independent of Austria, differing from it, as
it does, in race, language, and many other respects, to such a degree as
gives rise to much dissension, and every now and then threatens
disruption.
HUNS, THE, a horde of barbarians of Mongolian origin who invaded
Europe from the shores of the Caspian Sea in two wars, the first in the
4th century, which at length subsided, and the second in the 5th century,
ultimately under Atilla, which, in the main body of them at all events,
was driven back and even dispersed; they have been described as a race
with broad shoulders, flat noses, small black eyes buried in the head,
and without beards.
HUNT, HOLMAN, painter, born in London; became a pupil of Rossetti,
and "his greatest disciple," and joined the Pre-Raphaelite movement; he
began with "worldly subjects," but soon quitted these "virtually for
ever" under Rossetti's influence, and "rose into the spiritual passion
which first expressed itself in his 'Light of the World,'" with this
difference, as Ruskin points out, between him and his "forerunner," that
whereas Rossetti treated the story of the New Testament as a mere thing
of beauty, with Hunt, "when once his mind entirely fastened on it, it
became ... not merely a Reality, not merely the greatest of Realities,
but the only Reality"; in this religious realistic spirit, as Ruskin
further remarks, all Hunt's great work is done, and he notices how in all
subjects which fall short of the religious element, "his power also is
shortened, and he does those things worst which are easiest to other
men"; his principal works in this spirit are "The Scape-Goat," "The
Finding of Christ in the Temple," "The Shadow of Death," and the "Triumph
of the Innocents," to which we may add "The Strayed Sheep," remarkable as
well for its vivid sunshine, "producing," says Ruskin, "the same
impressions on the mind as are caused by the light itself"; _b_. 1827.
HUNT, LEIGH, essayist and poet; was of the Cockney school, a friend
of Keats and Shelley; edited the _Examiner_, a Radical organ; was a busy
man but a thriftless, and always in financial embarrassment, though
latterly he had a fair pension; lived near Carlyle, who at one time saw a
good deal of him, his household, and its disorderliness, an eyesore to
Carlyle, a "_poetical tinkerdom_" he called it, in which, however, he
received his visitors "in the spirit of a king, apologising for nothing";
Carlyle soon tired of him, though he was always ready to help him when in
need (1784-1859).
HUNTER, JOHN, anatomist and surgeon, born near East Kilbride,
Lanarkshire; started practice as a surgeon in London, became surgeon to
St. George's Hospital, and at length surgeon to the king; is
distinguished for his operations in the cure of aneurism; he built a
museum, in which he collected an immense number of specimens illustrative
of subjects of medical study, which, after his death, was purchased by
Government (1728-1793).
HUNTER, SIR WILLIAM, Indian statistician, in the Indian Civil
Service, and at the head of the Statistical Department; has written
several statistical accounts, the "Gazetteer of India," and other
elaborate works on India; with Lives of the Earl of Mayo and the Marquis
of Dalhousie; _b_. 1862.
HUNTINGDON (4), the county town of Huntingdonshire, stands on the
left bank of the Ouse 59 m. N. of London; has breweries, brick-works, and
nurseries, and was the birthplace of Oliver Cromwell.
HUNTINGDON, COUNTESS OF, a leader among the Whitfield Methodists,
and foundress of a college for the "Connexion" at Cheshunt (1707-1791).
HUNTINGDONSHIRE (57), an undulating county NE. of the Fen district,
laid out for most part in pasture and dairy land; many Roman remains are
to be found scattered about in it.
HURD, RICHARD, English bishop in succession of Lichfield and
Worcester; was both a religious writer and a critic; was the author of
"Letters on Chivalry and Romance," "Dissertations on Poetry," and
"Commentaries on Horace's Ars Poetica," the last much admired by Gibbon
(1720-1808).
HURON, a lake in N. America, 263 m. long and 70 m. broad, the second
largest on the average of the five on the Lawrence basin, interspersed
with numerous islands.
HURONS, THE, a tribe of Red Indians of the Iroquois family.
HUSKISSON, WILLIAM, an English statesman and financier;
distinguished for his services when in office in the relaxation of
restrictions on trade (1770-1830).
HUSS, JOHN, a Bohemian church reformer; was a disciple of Wyclif,
and did much to propagate his teaching, in consequence of which he was
summoned in 1414 to answer for himself before the Council of Constance;
went under safe-conduct from the emperor; "they laid him instantly in a
stone dungeon, three feet wide, six feet high, seven feet long; burnt the
true voice of him out of this world; choked it in smoke and fire"
(1373-1415).
HUTCHESON, FRANCIS, moral philosopher, born in Ulster, son of a
Presbyterian minister; educated in Glasgow; became professor in the
university there and founder of the Scotch school of philosophy, who,
according to Dr. Stirling, has not received the honour in that regard
which is his due (1094-1747).
HUTCHINSON, ANNE, a religious fanatic, born in England, settled in
New England, U.S.; expelled from the colony for Antinomian heresy, took
refuge in Rhode Island, and was with her family butchered by the Indians
(1590-1643).
HUTCHINSON, COLONEL, one of the Puritan leaders, and a prominent
actor in the Puritan revolt, to the extent of signing the death-warrant
of the king, but broke partnership as a republican with Cromwell when he
assumed sovereign power, and sullenly refused to be reconciled to the
Protector, though he begged him towards his end beseechingly as his old
comrade in arms (1616-1664).
HUTCHINSON, JOHN, a theological faddist, born in Yorkshire; in his
"Thoughts concerning Religion," derived all religion and philosophy from
the Bible, but directly, as he insisted, from the original Hebrew, in
which view he had a following of a few intelligent people (1674-1737).
HUTTEN, ULRICH VON, a zealous humanist and reformer, born in the
castle of Steckelberg, in Hesse, of an ancient and noble family; allied
himself as a scholar with Erasmus, and then with Luther as a man; entered
heart and soul into the Reformation of the latter to a rupture with the
former, and by his writings, which included invectives against the clergy
and appeals to the nation, did much, amid many perils, to advance the
cause of German emancipation from the thraldom of the Church (1488-1523).
HUTTON, CHARLES, a mathematician, born in Newcastle; became
professor at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; wrote on mathematics
and physics (1737-1825).
HUTTON, JAMES, celebrated geologist, born in Edinburgh; bred to
medicine, but devoted himself to agriculture and chemistry, which led on
to geology; was the author of the Plutonic theory of the earth, which
ascribes the inequalities and other phenomena in the crust of it to the
agency of the heat at the centre (1726-1797).
HUXLEY, THOMAS HENRY, eminent scientist in the department of natural
history, born at Ealing, Middlesex; was professor of Natural History in
the Royal School of Mines; distinguished by his studies and discoveries
in different sections of the animal kingdom, in morphology and
palæontology; was a zealous advocate of evolution, in particular the
views of Darwin, and a champion of science against the orthodoxy of the
Church; he was a man of eminent literary ability as well as scientific,
and of the greatest in that regard among scientific men (1825-1895).
HUYGENS, CHRISTIAN, a Dutch geometrician, physicist, and astronomer,
born at The Hague; published the first scientific work on the calculation
of probabilities, improved the telescope, broached the undulatory theory
of light, discovered the fourth satellite of Saturn, invented the
pendulum clock, and stands as a physicist midway between Galileo and
Newton (1629-1093).
HYDASPES, the ancient name of the Jhelum, the northernmost tributary
of the Indus.
HYDER ALI, a Mohammedan ruler of Mysore; raised himself to be
commander-in-chief of the army; organised it on the French model;
unseated the rajah; conquered Calicut, Bednor, and Kananur; waged war
successfully against the English and the Mahrattas, and left his kingdom
to his son TIPPOO SAIB (q. v.) (1728-1782).
HYDERABAD (370), the capital of the Nizam's dominions in the Deccan,
is 6 m. in circumference, strongly protected all round by a belt of rocky
desert, and a centre of Mohammedanism in India. Also the capital of Sind
(58), near the apex of the delta of the Indus; manufactures silks,
pottery, and lacquered ware, and is strongly fortified.
HYDRA, THE LERNEAN, a monstrous reptile inhabiting a marsh, with a
number of heads, that grew on again as often as they were chopped off,
and the destruction of which was one of the twelve labours of Hercules,
an act which symbolises the toil expended in draining the fens of the
world for man's habitation.
HYGEIA, in the Greek mythology the Goddess of Health, and daughter
of Æsculapius; is represented as a virgin in a long robe, with a cup in
her hand and a serpent drinking out of it.
HYMEN, in the Greek mythology the God of Marriage, son of Apollo,
and one of the Muses, represented as a boy with wings; originally a
nuptial song sung at the departure of the bride from her parental home.
HYMER, a frost Jötun, whose cows are icebergs; splits rocks with the
glance of his eye.
HYMETTUS, a mountain in Attica, famous for its honey and marble.
HYPATIA, a far-famed lady teacher of Greek philosophy in Alexandria,
distinguished for her beauty and purity of life, who, one day in 415, on
her return home from her lecture-room, was massacred in the streets of
the city, at the instance, of both Jews and Christians, as a propagator
of paganism.
HYPERBOREANS, a people blooming in youth and health, fabled by the
Greeks to dwell in the extreme northern parts of the world under favour
of Apollo.
HYPERMNESTRA, the only one of the DANAIDES (q. v.) who
spared the life of her husband in spite of her father's orders.
HYPNOTISM, the process of inducing sleep by wearying out the optic
nerve of the eyes, by making the patient fix them upon a certain spot for
a time, generally situated where it is a little wearisome for the eyes to
find it. The fatigue thus induced spreads from the ocular muscles to the
system, causing deep sleep.
HYRCANIA, an ancient province of Persia, on the E. and SE. of the
Caspian Sea, celebrated for the savage animals that inhabited its
forests, as well as the savagery of its inhabitants.
HYRCANUS, JOHN, the son of Simon Maccabeus, king of Judea, as well
as High-Priest of the Jews from 135 to 105 B.C.; achieved the
independence of his country from the Syrian yoke, extended the borders of
it, and compelled the Edomites to accept the Jewish faith at the point of
the sword; in the strife then rampant between the SADDUCEES (q. v.)
and the PHARISEES (q. v.) he sided with the former.
I
IACHIMO, an arch-villain in Shakespeare's "Cymbeline," who attempts
to violate the chastity of Imogen.
IACHUS, the son of Zeus and Demeter, and the solemn name of Bacchus
in the Eleusinian Mysteries.
IAGO, a cool, selfish, malignant, subtle, evil-scheming knave in
"Othello," his "ancient" or ensign, who poisoned his mind against
Desdemona.
IAMBLICHUS, a Neo-Platonic philosopher of the 4th century, in the
time of Constantine, struggled, as it proved, in vain for the revival of
Greek philosophy, in the hope of thereby stemming the advance of
Christianity.
IAMBUS, a metrical foot, consisting of two syllables, of which the
first is short and the second long, or in which the stress is on the
second.
IAPETOS, in the Greek mythology a Titan, father of Atlas,
Prometheus, and Epimetheus, as the Greeks fabled the ancestor of the
human race.
IBERIA, the ancient and still poetic name of Spain; anciently also a
territory inhabited by an agricultural population between the Black Sea
and the Caspian, now called Georgia.
IBIS, the Nile bird, regarded as an avatar of deity, and held sacred
by the Egyptians; it did not breed in Egypt, and was supposed to be of
mystic origin; it arrives in Egypt when the Nile begins to rise.
IBRAHIM BEY, chief of the Mamelukes of Egypt at the time of
Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1798 (1789-1816).
IBRAHIM PASHA, viceroy of Egypt, son and successor of Mehemet-Ali;
appointed generalissimo of the Egyptian army, remodelled it after the
French fashion; was leader of the Turks against the Greeks; gained
several victories over them in 1828, but was obliged to retire; overran
and conquered Syria from the Sultan, but was forced by the Powers to
surrender his conquest and restore it; he was Viceroy of Egypt only for a
single year, and died at Cairo (1789-1848).
IBSEN, HENRIK, Norwegian dramatist and poet, born at Skein, in
Norway; bred to medicine; is author of a succession of plays of a new
type, commencing with "Catalina," a poor attempt, followed by "Doll's
House," "Ghosts," "Pillars of Society," and "Brand," deemed his
masterpiece, besides others; his characters are vividly drawn as if from
life; he is a psychologist, and his productions have all more or less a
social bearing; _b_. 1828.
IBYCUS, a Greek lyric poet, who was murdered by robbers, and who
appealed to a flock of cranes that flew past before he died to avenge his
death, and that proved the means of the discovery of the murderers.
ICARUS, son of DÆDALUS (q. v.), who, flying with his father
from Crete on wax-fastened wings, soared so high that the sun melted the
wax and he dropped into the sea, giving name to that part of it.
ICE BLINK, the name given to a white light seen on the horizon, due
to reflection from a field of ice immediately beyond.
ICELAND (71), a volcanic island larger by a third than Scotland,
lying just S. of the polar circle, between Greenland and Norway, distant
250 m. from the former and 500 from the latter; consists of a plateau
2000 ft. high, sometimes sloping to the sea, sometimes ending in sheer
precipices, from which rise numerous snow-clad volcanoes, some, like
Hecla, still active. "A wild land of barrenness and lava," Carlyle
characterises it, "swallowed up many months of the year in black
tempests, yet with a wild gleaming beauty in summer time, towering up
there stern and grim, with its snow jokuls and roaring geysers, and
horrid volcanic chasms, like the waste chaotic battlefield of frost and
fire." The interior comprises lava and sand tracts, and ice-fields, but
outside these are river valleys and lake districts affording pasturage,
and arable land capable of producing root crops. The climate is
changeable, mild for the latitude, but somewhat colder than Scotland.
There are few trees, and these small; cranberries grow among the heather,
and Iceland moss is a plentiful article of food. The island exports sheep
and ponies; the fisheries are important, including cod, seals, and
whales; sulphur and coal are found; the hot springs are famous,
especially the Great Geyser, near Hecla. Discovered by Irishmen and
colonised by Norwegians in the 9th century, Iceland passed over to the
Danes in 1388, who granted it home rule in 1893. The religion has been
Protestant since 1550; its elementary education is excellent. Reykjavik
(3) is the capital; two towns have 500 inhabitants each; the rest of the
population is scattered in isolated farms; stock-raising and fishing are
the principal industries, and the manufacture of homespun for their own
use.
ICH DIEN (I serve), the motto of the Black Prince, adopted from John
of Bohemia, and since then that of the English Prince of Wales.
ICHNEUMON, an animal of the weasel tribe, worshipped in Egypt from
its destroying the eggs of noxious reptiles, and of the crocodile in
particular.
ICHOR, an ethereal fluid presumed to supply the place of blood in
the veins of the Greek gods.
ICHTHYOSAURUS (lit. a fish-reptile), an extinct marine reptile in
the shape of a fish, its limbs paddles, and with a long lizard-like tail.
ICONIUM, the capital of Lycaonia, in Asia Minor, a flourishing city
in St. Paul's time, who planted a church there, and of importance in the
time of the Crusades; is now named Konieh.
ICONOCLASTS (i. e. breakers of images), the name given to a sect
who, in the 8th century, opposed to the presence of images in churches
and the worship paid to them, set about the demolition of them as
savouring of idolatry, and even in 730 obtained a papal decree or
condemnation of the practice; the enthusiasm died out in the next
century, but the effect of it was felt in a controversy, which led to the
separation of the Church of the East from that of the West.
ICTINUS, great Greek architect of the 5th century B.C., a
contemporary of Pericles, designer of temples at Bussæ and Eleusis, and
joint-designer with Callicrates of the world's one perfect building, the
Parthenon, at Athens (437 B.C.).
IDA, the name of two mountains in the East, one in Crete, on which
Zeus was brought up in a cave near it, and one in Asia Minor, near Troy,
"Woody Ida," the scene of the rape of Ganymedes and of the judgment of
Paris, also a seat of Cybele worship.
IDAHO (88), one of the north-western States of the American Union,
surrounded by Washington and Oregon in the W., Nevada and Utah in the S.,
Wyoming in the E., and Montana, from which it is separated by a branch of
the Rocky Mountains, in the NE., the short northern boundary touches
Canada; the country is traversed by lofty mountain ranges cut up into
deep river valleys and cañons, is extremely rugged in its northern parts,
and chiefly useful for cattle-raising; there is a plateau in the centre,
some arid prairie land in the S., and lake districts in the N. and in the
SE.; grain farming is restricted to fringes along the river banks; the
Snake River flows through the whole S.; silver, lead, gold, and copper
mines are wrought successfully, and coal is found; the State was admitted
to the Union in 1890; a fifth of the population are Mormons; there are
still 4000 Indians. Boisé City (2) is the capital.
IDDESLEIGH, EARL OF, Sir Stafford Northcote, Conservative financier
and statesman, born in London of old Devonshire stock; educated at
Oxford; became private secretary to Mr. Gladstone in 1842, and five years
later was called to the bar; entering Parliament in 1885, he sat in
succession for Dudley, for Stamford, and for North Devon; under Lord
Derby he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury in 1859, and President
of the Board of Trade in 1866; under Disraeli he was at the India Office
in 1868, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1874; he succeeded Disraeli
in the leadership of the Commons, and was raised to the peerage in 1885;
was successively First Lord of the Treasury and Foreign Secretary under
Lord Salisbury; in 1871 Mr. Gladstone appointed him Commissioner in the
settlement of the _Alabama_ claim, and he was elected Lord Hector of
Edinburgh University in 1883; resigning from the Foreign Office in
January 1887, he died suddenly a few days later at the Prime Minister's
residence (1818-1887).
IDEALISM, that view of the universe which, in opposition to
MATERIALISM (q. v.), refers everything to and derives everything
from a spiritual root; is Subjective if traced no further back than the
_ego_, and Objective if traced back to the _non-ego_ likewise, its
counterpart, or other, in the objective world. Idealism in art is art
more or less at work in the region of the ideal in comparative disregard
of the actual.
IDELER, CHRISTIAN LUDWIG, a German astronomer, born in Prussia; an
authority on chronology, on which he wrote a handbook, as also a work on
the reckoning of time among the Chinese (1766-1846).
IDENTICAL NOTE, a term in diplomacy to denote terms agreed upon by
two Powers to coerce a third.
IDES, the name given in the Roman calendar to certain days that
_divide_ the month; in March, May, July, and October they fall on the
15th, in the rest on the 13th.
IDOLATRY, worship paid to a mere symbol of the divine while the
heart is dead to all sense of that which it symbolises; a species of
offence against the Most High, of which many are flagrantly guilty who
affect to regard with pity the worshipper of idols of wood or stone.
"Idolatry," says Buskin, _apropos_ of Carlyle's well-known doctrine, "is
summed up in the one broad wickedness of refusing to worship Force and
resolving to worship No-Force; denying the Almighty, and bowing down to
four-and-twopence with a stamp on it."
IDOMENEUS, king of Crete, grandson of Minos, and a hero of the
Greeks in the war with Troy.
IDRIS, a giant, prince, and astronomer of Welsh tradition, whose
rock-hewn chair on the summit of Cader Idris was supposed to mete out to
the bard who spent a night upon it death, madness, or poetic inspiration.
IDUMÆA. See EDOM.
IDUNA, a Scandinavian goddess who kept a box of golden apples which
the gods tasted when they wished to renew their youth; she was carried
off one day, but being sent for by the gods, came back changed into a
falcon.
IDYLL, a poem in celebration of everyday life or life in everyday
costume amid natural, often pastoral and even romantic, and at times
tragic surroundings.
IF, an islet in the Gulf of Marseilles, with a castle built by
Francis I., and afterwards used as a State prison.
IGGDRASIL the _Tree_ of Existence, as conceived of by the Norse, and
reflecting the Norse idea of the universe, "has its roots deep down in
the kingdoms of Hela, or Death; its trunk reaches up heaven-high, and
spreads its boughs over the whole universe. At the foot of it, in the
Death-Kingdom, sit the THREE NORNAS (q. v.) watering its roots
from the sacred Well."
IGNATIEFF, NICHOLAS, Russian general and diplomatist, born at St.
Petersburg; was ambassador at Pekin in 1859, and at Constantinople in
1864, and secured at both posts important concessions to Russia; he is a
zealous Panslavist and Anti-Semite, too much so to carry with him the
support of the country; _b_. 1832.
IGNATIUS, FATHER, the name by which the Rev. Joseph Lyne is known,
born in London, educated at St. Paul's School and Glenalmond; commenced a
movement to introduce monasticism into the Church of England, and built a
monastery for monks and nuns near Llanthony Abbey, the members of which
follow the rule and wear the garb of the Order of St. Benedict; _b_.
1837.
IGNATIUS, ST., surnamed Theophoros, an Apostolic Father of the
Church, Bishop of Antioch; died a martyr at Rome about 115, by exposure
to wild beasts, in the amphitheatre; is represented in Christian art as
accompanied by lions, or exposed to them chained; left epistles which, if
genuine as we have them, establish prelacy as the order of government in
the primitive Church, and lay especial stress on the twofold nature of
Christ.
IGNATIUS LOYOLA. See LOYOLA.
IGNORANTINES, a Jesuit association in the Roman Catholic Church
founded in 1724, who give instruction to poor children gratis, with the
object of winning them over to the Catholic faith.
IHRE, JOHAN, a learned Swedish philologist, born at Lund, of Scotch
descent; was 40 years professor of Rhetoric and Political Economy at
Upsala, and was the founder of Swedish philology (1707-1780).
ILE DE FRANCE, the province of France of which Paris is the capital;
was also formerly the name of Mauritius.
ILE DU DIABLE, an island off the coast of French Guiana, where
Captain Dreyfus was confined.
ILFRACOMBE, a popular watering-place on the coast of N. Devon, in
the Bristol Channel; once a considerable place.
ILIAD, the great epic poem of Homer, consisting of 24 books, the
subject of which is the "wrath of ACHILLES" (q. v.), and the
events which followed during the last year of the ten years' Trojan War,
so called from ILION, one of the names of Troy. See ILIUM.
ILITHYIA, the Greek goddess who presided over the travail of woman
at childbirth, promoting or retarding the birth as the Fates might
ordain.
ILIUM, TROY (q. v.), so called from Ilus, the son of Tros,
who founded the city.
ILLINOIS (3,826), an American State as large as England and Wales;
has the Mississippi for its western, the Ohio for its southern boundary,
with Wisconsin and Lake Michigan in the N. and Indiana on the E.; fourth
in population, seventeenth in area; "the Prairie State" is level, well
watered, and extremely fertile; has a climate subject to extremes, but,
except in the swamps, healthy. It produces enormous quantities of wheat,
besides other cereals, of tobacco and temperate fruits. Flour-milling,
pork-packing, and distilling are the chief industries. The most extensive
coal-deposits in America are in this State; with navigable rivers on its
borders, and traversing it Lake Michigan, a great canal, and the largest
railway system in the Union, it is admirably situated for commercial
development; originally acquired by Britain from the French, who entered
it from Canada; it was ceded to the Americans in 1783, and admitted to
the Union 1818; the State spends $12,000,000 annually on education, which
is compulsory, and has a large and wealthy scientific and agricultural
university at Urbana. Springfield (25) is the capital; but Chicago
(1,100) is the largest city.
ILLUMINATED DOCTOR, a title bestowed on RAYMOND LULLY (q. v.).
ILLUMINATI, a class or fraternity of people who affect superior
enlightenment, particularly on religious and social matters, tending of
late in the one to Deism, and in the other to Republicanism, in France
forming a body of materialists, and in Germany a body of idealists; the
former to the disparagement of ideas, and the latter to the disparagement
of reason, and both hostile to the Church.
ILLUMINATION, THE, the name given to the "advanced" thinking class
who pride themselves in their emancipation from all authority in
spiritual matters, the assumption of which they regard as an outrage not
only against the right of private judgment, but the very constitution of
man, which, they argue, is violated when respect is not before all paid
to individual conviction. See AUFKLÄRUNG.
ILLYRIA, the name anciently given to a broad stretch of mountainous
country of varying extent lying E. of the Adriatic Sea. The Illyrians
were the last Balkan people to be civilised; becoming a Roman province 35
B.C., Illyria furnished several emperors, among them the notorious
Diocletian. Constantine extended the province to include all the country
S. of the Danube; at the division of the empire, Greece and Macedonia
went to the East, the rest to the West; the name was revived by Napoleon,
but has since been dropped.
ILUS, a legendary king of Troy, the grandson of Dardanus, and the
founder of Ilium.
IMAGE WORSHIP in the Christian Church is reverence, as distinct from
the supreme adoration of the Deity, paid to the crucifix and to pictures,
images, or statues of saints and martyrs, and understood really as
offered through these to the personages whom they represent. The
practice, unknown in apostolic or sub-apostolic times, was prevalent in
the 4th century, provoked by its excesses a severe reaction in the 8th
century, but carefully defined by the second Council of Nice (787), has
continued since both in the Greek and Roman communion; there is still
controversy as to its propriety in the Anglican Church; the Lutherans
still use the crucifix freely, but other Protestant Churches have
entirely repudiated the practice. See ICONOCLASTS.
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS, a remarkable work by Landor, in 6 vols.,
much appreciated by many.
IMAGINATION, the name appropriate to the highest faculty of man, and
defined by Ruskin as "mental creation," in the exercise of which the
human being discharges his highest function as a responsible being, "the
defect of which on common minds it is the main use," says Ruskin, "of
works of fiction, and of the drama, as far as possible, to supply."
IMÂM is the title of the officer who leads the devotions in
Mohammedan mosques, and in Turkey conducts marriage and funeral services,
as well as performs the ceremonies connected with circumcision; the
office was filled and the title borne by Mahomet, hence it sometimes
signifies head of the faith, and is so applied to the Sultan of Turkey;
good Mohammedans believe in the future advent of an Imâm--the hidden
Imâm--who shall be greater than the Prophet himself.
IMAUS, a name the ancients gave to any large mountain chain in Asia,
more particularly one bordering on India, or looking down upon it, as the
home of the Aryans.
IMITATION OF CHRIST, a book of pious reflections, unique in its
kind, and much esteemed by piously thoughtful people; ascribed to
THOMAS À KEMPIS (q. v.).
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, the doctrine held by the Roman Catholic
Church that the Virgin Mary was conceived and born without taint of sin;
first distinctly propounded in the 12th century, at which time a festival
was introduced in celebration of it, and which became matter of dispute
in the 14th century, and it was only in 1854 that it became by a bull an
article of the Catholic faith.
IMMANENCE, the idea that the creative intelligence which made, with
the regulative intelligence which governs, the universe, is inherent in
it and pervades it.
IMMENSITIES, CENTRE OF, an expression of Carlyle's to signify that
wherever any one is, he is in touch with the whole universe of being, and
is, if he knew it, as near the heart of it there as anywhere else he can
be.
IMMENSITY, THE TEMPLE OF, the universe as felt to be in every corner
of it a temple consecrated to worship in with wonder and awe.
IMMERMANN, KARL LEBERECHT, German novelist and dramatist, born at
Magdeburg; fought at Waterloo; entered the public service of Prussia and
obtained an appointment at Düsseldorf, where he died; his fame rests upon
his miscellaneous tales and satirical novels, such as "Münchausen"; his
dramas consisted of both tragedies and comedies (1796-1840).
IMMORTALITY, the doctrine of the continued existence of the soul of
each individual after death, a doctrine the belief of which is, in one
form or another, common to most religious systems; even to those which
contemplate absorption in the Deity as the final goal of existence, as is
evident from the prevalence in them of the doctrine of transmigration or
reincarnation.
IMMORTALS, a regiment of 10,000 foot soldiers who formed the
bodyguard of the ancient Persian kings; the name given to the 40 members
of the French Academy.
IMOGEN, the daughter of Cymbeline, in Shakespeare's play of the
name, a perfect female character, pronounced "the most tender and the
most artless of all Shakespeare's women."
IMO`LA (12), a town in Italy, 10 m. N. of Faenza, with some fine
palaces; manufactures leather, glass, silk, &c.
IMPANATION, a name employed to denote the union of the body of
Christ with the bread of the Eucharist.
IMPENETRABILITY, the name given to that quality of matter whereby
two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
IMPERATIVE, THE CATEGORICAL. See CATEGORICAL.
IMPERIAL FEDERATION, name given to a scheme for uniting more closely
together the several interests of the British Empire.
IMPERIAL INSTITUTE, South Kensington, founded by the exertions of
the Prince of Wales in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria's jubilee, was
opened by her in 1893; was intended to include a complete collection of
the products of the British Empire, a grand commercial intelligence
bureau, and a school of modern Oriental languages; the government to be
carried on by a chartered body, whose form of constitution was granted
by a royal warrant of date April 21, 1891; the idea is for the present
abandoned, and the premises appropriated as henceforth the seat of the
London University.
IMPERIALISM, the name given by English politicians to the policy
which aims at the consolidation into one empire of all the colonies and
dependencies along with the mother-country.
IMPETIGO, a cutaneous eruption, generally in clusters, of
yellow-scaled pustules, which grow thicker and larger; common among
children ill fed and ill cared for.
IMPEY, SIR ELIJAH, Indian judge, born at Hammersmith; educated at
Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1756; was sent out to Bengal as first
Chief-Justice in 1774; he supported Warren Hastings's administration, and
presided over the court which sentenced Nuncomar to death for forgery; in
the quarrel over Hastings's alleged resignation he decided in favour of
the governor; was recalled and impeached for his conduct of the Nuncomar
trial in 1783, but was honourably acquitted; resigning in 1789, he sat in
Parliament for New Romney till 1796 (1732-1809).
IMPONDERABLES, the name given to light, heat, and electricity when
they were supposed to be material substances, but without weight.
IMPRESSIONISM, a term in painting that denotes the principle of a
new school originating in France before 1870, and introduced into this
country some 10 years later; it is a revolt against traditionalism in
art, and aims at reproducing on canvas not what the mind knows or by
close study observes is in nature, but the "impression" which eye and
mind gather. The influence of the movement has been strong, and promises
to be lasting both here and in Germany, and not the least interesting
work of the kind has of late years issued from the "Glasgow School" and
the "London Impressionists."
IMPRESSMENT, legalised enforcement of service in the British navy,
which has for years been in abeyance, and is not likely to be ever again
revived.
IMPROPRIATION, the transference of the revenues of a benefice to a
layman or lay body to be devoted to spiritual uses.
IMPUTATION, the theological dogma of the transference of guilt or
merit from one to another who is descended naturally or spiritually from
the same stock as the former, as of Adam's guilt to us by nature or
Christ's righteousness to us by faith; although in Scripture the term
generally, if not always, denotes the reckoning to a man of the merit or
the demerit involved in, not another's doings, but his own, as in a
single act of faith or a single act of unbelief, the one viewed as
allying him with all that is good, or as a proof of his essential
goodness, and the other as allying him with all that is evil, or as a
proof of his essential wickedness.
IN CÆNA DOMINI (i. e. in the Supper of the Lord), a papal bull
promulgated in the Middle Ages, denouncing excommunication against all
who dispute the claims of the Church, and the promulgation of which was
felt on all hands to be intolerable; the promulgation has been
discontinued since 1773.
INACHOS, in Greek legend the first king of Argos, son of Oceanus and
Tethys.
IN-AND-IN, a term applied to the breeding of animals from the same
parentage.
INCA, a king or royal prince of the ancient original people of Peru.
INCANDESCENT LIGHT, or ELECTRIC LIGHT, a light produced by a
thin strip of a non-conducting body, such as carbon, in a vacuum raised
to intense heat by an electric current.
INCARNATION, the humanisation of the Divine in the person of Christ,
a doctrine vehemently opposed in the early times of the Church by both
Jews and Gnostics, by the former as inconsistent with the greatness of
God, and by the latter as inconsistent with the inbred depravity of man.
INCENSE, a fragrance which arises from the burning of certain gums
and burnt in connection with sundry religious observances, particularly
in the Roman Catholic Church, as an expression of praise presumably well
pleasing to God; a practice which Protestants repudiate as without
warrant in Scripture.
INCHBALD, ELIZABETH, actress, dramatist, and novelist, daughter of
John Simpson, a Suffolk farmer; came to London at the age of 18, seeking
a theatrical engagement; after some adventures she met Joseph Inchbald,
an actor of no note, to whom she was married in 1772; shortly afterwards
she made her _début_ as Cordelia at Bristol; after seven years in the
provinces and nine in London, during which she failed to rise high in her
profession, she turned to literature; she wrote and adapted many plays,
but the works by which she is remembered are two novels, "A Simple Story"
and "Nature and Art" (1753-1821).
INCHCOLM, an island in the Firth of Forth, near Aberdour, on the
Fife coast, so called as the residence of St. Columba when engaged in the
conversion of the Northern Picts; has the remains of an abbey founded by
Alexander I.
INCHKEITH, an island in the Firth of Forth, in the county of Fife,
2½m. N. of Leith, and about ½ m. long, has a lighthouse with a revolving
light, and fortifications to protect the Forth.
INCITATUS, the horse of CALIGULA (q. v.); had a house and a
servant to itself, was fed from vessels of gold, admitted to the
priesthood, and created a consul of Rome.
INCLEDON, CHARLES BENJAMIN, a celebrated ballad-singer with a fine
tenor voice, born in Cornwall (1763-1826).
INCORRUPTIBLE, THE, ROBESPIERRE (q. v.), a man not to be
seduced to betray his principles or party.
INCREMENT, UNEARNED, an expression denoting increase in the value of
landed property due to increased demand and without any expenditure on
the part of the proprietor.
INDEPENDENCE, DECLARATION OF, a declaration made July 4, 1776, by
the North American States declaring their independence of Great Britain.
INDEPENDENCE, THE WAR OF, the name given to the struggle which the
North American colonists maintained against the mother country.
INDEPENDENCE DAY, a holiday observed throughout the United States
annually on the 4th of July in celebration of the Declaration of
Independence in 1776 that day.
INDEPENDENTS or CONGREGATIONALISTS are a Protestant sect
deriving both names from their principle of government; repudiating both
Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, they hold that every congregation should
manage its own affairs, and elect its own officers independent of all
authority save that of Christ; they profess to derive all rules of faith
and practice from the Scriptures, and are closely akin to Presbyterians
in doctrine. Numerous as early as Queen Elizabeth's time, they suffered
persecution then; many fled or were banished to Holland, whence the
_Mayflower_ conveyed the Pilgrim Fathers to New England in 1620.
Regaining ascendency under Cromwell, they again suffered at the
Restoration; but political disabilities then imposed have gradually been
removed, and now they are the most vigorous Dissenting body in England.
The congregations in the English Union (a union for common purposes and
mutual help) number 4700, those in the Scottish Union 100.
INDEX EXPURGATORIUS, a list of books issued by the Church of Rome,
which, as hostile to her teaching, are placed under her ban, and are
under penalties forbidden to be read. The first list published was by
Pope Paul IV. in 1557, and in 1562 the Council of Trent appointed a
committee whose special business it should be to draw up a complete list
of obnoxious writings, a work which it fell to Paul IV. to finish after
the sittings of the Council came to a close in an index issued in 1564.
INDIA (287,223), British dependency, consisting of the great
peninsula in the S. of Asia, which has the Bay of Bengal on the E. and
the Arabian Sea on the W., and is separated from the mainland by the
Hindu-Kush and the Himalaya Mountains; politically the name includes
besides the Punjab in the N. and Burma in the E.; the centre of the
peninsula is a great plateau called the Deccan, between which and the
snow-clad Himalaya stretch the great fertile basins of the Ganges, the
Thar Desert, and the arid wastes of the Indus Valley; great varieties of
climate are of course met with, but the temperature is prevailingly high,
and the monsoons of the Indian Ocean determine the regularity of the
rainy season, which occurs from June to October; the country generally is
insalubrious; the vegetation is correspondingly varied, but largely
tropical; rice, cereal crops, sugar, and tobacco are generally grown;
cotton in Bombay and the Central Provinces, opium in the Ganges Valley,
jute in Eastern Bengal, and indigo in Behar; coffee and tea are raised by
Europeans in the hill country on virgin soil; the chief mineral deposits
are extensive coal-fields between the Ganges and the Godavari, the most
valuable salt deposits in the world in the Punjab, and deposits of iron,
the purest found anywhere, in many parts of the country, which, however,
are wrought only by native methods; native manufactures are being largely
superseded by European methods, and the young cotton-weaving industry
flourishes well; the country is well populated on the whole, with a
relative scarcity of big towns; the people belong to many different
races, and speak languages representing four distinct stocks; the vast
bulk of them are Brahmanists or Hindus; there are many Mohammedans,
Buddhists (in Burma), and Parsees (in Bombay); 2¼ millions are
Christians, and there are other religions; India has been subject to many
conquests; the Aryan, Greek, and Mussulman invasions swept from the NW.;
the Portuguese obtained a footing on the SW. coast in the 15th century;
the victories of Plassey 1757, and Seringapatam 1799, established British
rule throughout the whole peninsula, and the principle that native
princes where they retained their thrones were vassals; Sind was won in
1843 and the Punjab in 1849, and the powers of the East India Company
transferred to the Queen in 1857, who was proclaimed Empress in 1877; the
government is vested in a governor-general aided by an executive and a
legislative council, under control, however, of a Secretary of State for
India and council at home; there are governors and lieutenant-governors
of the presidencies of Madras and Bombay, and of the various provinces;
native States are all attached to and subject to the supervision of the
government of a province; there is a native army of 146,000 men, and
74,000 European troops are maintained in the country; British rule has
developed the resources of the country, advanced its civilisation, and
contributed to the welfare of the people; Indian finance is not yet
satisfactory; the currency is based on silver, the steady depreciation of
which metal has never ceased to hamper the national funds.
INDIA, (1) THE IMPERIAL ORDER OF THE CROWN OF, founded in 1878,
includes the Queen and certain royal princes, English and Indian, female
relatives of the Viceroy, of the governors of Bombay and Madras, and
others in high places in India; (2) THE MOST EXALTED ORDER OF THE STAR
OF, founded in 1861 and since enlarged, with the sovereign for head
and the viceroy as grand-master, and three different grades of knights,
designed severally G.C.S.I., K.C.S.I, and C.S.I., a blue ribbon with
white stripes being the badge; and (3) THE MOST EMINENT ORDER OF THE
EMPIRE OF, founded in 1878 and enlarged in 1887, with queen and
empress at the head, and a knighthood similar to the preceding, their
motto, "Imperatricis auspiciis."
INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE, a service which, besides embracing the
ordinary departments of civil administration, includes judicial, medical,
territorial, and even military staff appointments, appointments dependent
on the possession of regulated, more or less academic, qualifications.
INDIAN MUTINY, a wide-spread rebellion on the part chiefly of the
Sepoys against British authority in 1857, and which was suppressed by a
strong force under Sir Colin Campbell in 1858.
INDIAN OCEAN is that stretch of sea between Africa on the W. and
Australia, Java, and Sumatra on the E., which separates in the N. into
the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal; the monsoons, or trade-winds, blow
here with great regularity; from April to October they are strong from
the SW., from October to April more gentle in the opposite direction;
there are many islands and reefs of coral formation, such as the Maldive
group; St. Paul's and Mauritius are volcanic, while Madagascar and Ceylon
are typical continental islands.
INDIAN TERRITORY (186), a stretch of country in the basin of the
Arkansas, Canadian, and Red Rivers, with Kansas on the N., Arkansas on
the E., Oklahoma Territory on the W., and separated by the Red River from
Texas on the S., set apart for the occupation of the Indian tribes of the
western prairies; formerly double its present size, it has been reduced
by the purchase in 1890 of Oklahoma.; in the centre and east are fertile
plains and great forests of walnut and maple, in which deer and bears
abound; the west is a treeless prairie supporting vast herds of cattle;
mineral resources are probably rich, but are undeveloped; the principal
tribes have their own organisations and civilised institutions, churches,
schools, banks, and newspapers; the towns are small, Tahlequah, Lehigh,
and M'Alister are the chief.
INDIANA (2,192), one of the smaller but most populous States of the
American Union, lies between Lake Michigan and the Ohio River, with Ohio
on the E. and Illinois on the W.; the climate is marked by extremes of
heat and cold; the country is somewhat hilly in the S., is mostly level,
well watered, and very fertile; agriculture is the chief industry,
cereals, potatoes, and tobacco forming the chief crops; there is great
mineral wealth, with extensive and varied industries, embracing iron,
glass, and textile manufactures, waggon-building, and furniture-making;
petroleum wells are abundant, and in one part of the territory natural
gas is found in great quantities. First occupied by the French, Indiana
was acquired by Britain in 1763, ceded to America 1783, and admitted to
the Union in 1816; education in the State university and schools is free;
besides Indianapolis, the capital, the largest towns are Evansville (50),
Fort Wayne (30), and Terre Haute (30).
INDIANAPOLIS (169), capital of Indiana, on the White Ford River, in
the centre of the State; a fine city, with wide, tree-lined streets,
large iron, brass, and textile manufactures, and canned-meat industry; is
a great railroad centre.
INDIANS, AMERICAN, the aborigines of America, and now gradually
dying out; these aborigines were called Indians by Columbus, because when
he discovered America he thought it was India. See AMERICAN INDIANS.
INDIA-RUBBER, CAOUTCHOUC, or GUM ELASTIC, is a product of the
milky juices of several tropical and sub-tropical plants found in the
West Indies, Central and South America, West Africa, and India; there is
evidence that its properties were partially known to the Spaniards in the
West Indies early in the 17th century; but its first introduction to this
country was about 1770, when it was employed by artists for erasing
black-lead pencil marks, hence its familiar name; it is collected by
making incisions in the tree trunk and gathering the slowly exuding
juice, which is first solidified by drying, then purified by boiling and
washing; it is flexible and elastic, insoluble in water, and impenetrable
to gases and fluids, and these qualities give it great commercial
importance; the use of pure rubber has been greatly superseded by that of
"vulcanised" rubber; mixed with from 1/40 to ½ of its weight of sulphur
and combined by heat, the rubber acquires greater elasticity, is not
hardened by cold or rendered viscid by heat, and is insoluble in many of
the solvents of pure rubber; its usefulness is thus largely increased and
greatly extended of late; the demand for rubber is in excess of the
supply, but no substitute has been found effective; in recent years care
has been bestowed on its economical collection and on its scientific
culture.
INDICTION, a cycle of 15 years instituted by Constantine the Great,
and which began on the 24th September 812, the day of his victory over
Maxentius; to find the indiction of any year add 1 and divide by 15.
INDIUM, a metallic elementary body of rare occurrence, and first
discovered in zinc-blende in 1863.
INDIVIDUALISM, the name given to a social system which has respect
to the rights of the individual as sovereign, and is strictly opposed to
Socialism.
INDO-CHINA, called also the Eastern Peninsula or Farther India, the
name given to the large peninsular territory which lies between the Bay
of Bengal and the Chinese Sea, lying almost wholly within the Torrid
Zone, and embracing the empires of Burma and Annam and the kingdom of
Cambodia and Siam, as well as territories under Britain and France, all
now mostly divided between the latter two and Siam; it is sparsely
peopled owing to its mountainous character and the swampy lands, and the
natives are mainly of the Mongolian type.
INDO-EUROPEAN, an epithet applied to a family of the human race with
the languages of its several members descended from the Aryans, and found
dispersed over an area including the better part of India and Europe.
INDO-GERMANIC, a term at one time employed especially among German
writers, synonymous with Aryan.
INDORE, 1, a native principality (1,094), in Central India, somewhat
larger than Wales, embraces the Vindbya and Satpura Mountains, and is
traversed by the Nerbudda River; there are great forests on the
mountains; the valley of the river is fertile; wheat, sugar, cotton,
tobacco, and large quantities of opium are raised; the climate is sultry,
and at certain seasons unhealthy; the natives are chiefly Mahratta
Hindus; among the hills are Bhils and Gonds, the wildest tribes of India;
the State is governed by a Maharajah styled Holkar, under supervision of
an agent of the Governor-General; education is progressing. INDORE,
2, on the Kuthi River, the capital (92), is a poor city of brick and mud;
the palace and the British residency, however, are fine buildings; it is
connected by rail with Bombay, distant 400 m. SW., and with Ajmere; it
was the scene of a British massacre in 1857.
INDRA, the king of heaven and national god of the Aryans; gives
victory to his people, and is always ready to aid them; he is
pre-eminently a warlike god, and as he stands on his war-chariot, drawn
by five fawn-coloured horses, he is in a sort the type of an Aryan
chieftain; he is sometimes assisted by other gods, but he more frequently
fights alone; he is the dispenser, moreover, of all good gifts, and the
author and preserver of all living; his power extends over the heavens,
and he holds the earth in the hollow of his hand.
INDUCTION, the name given to the logical process by which from a
study of particular instances we arrive at a general principle or law.
The term is also applied to an electric or magnetic effect produced
without direct contact and equal to the cause, being essentially its
reproduction.
INDULGENCE, remission by Church authority of the guilt of a sin on
the penitent confession of the sinner to a priest, which, according to
Roman Catholic theology, the Church is enabled to dispense out of the
inexhaustible treasury in reserve of the merits of Christ.
INDUS, a great river of India, 1800 m. long; rises in Thibet, on the
N. of the Himalayas, flows NW. through Cashmere, then SW. through the
Punjab and Sind to the sea; its upper course is through great gorges and
very rapid, but after the entrance of the Kabul River its way lies
through arid plains, and it is navigable; after receiving the Panjnad its
volume decreases through evaporation and the sinking of some of the many
streams into which it divides in the sand; on one of the branches of the
delta stands the thriving port of Kurrachee.
INERTIA, that property of bodies by which they remain in a state of
rest or of motion in a straight line till disturbed by a force moving
them in the one case or arresting them in the other.
INEZ DE CASTRO. See CASTRO.
INFALLIBILITY, freedom from all error in the past and from all
possibility of error in the future as claimed by the Church of Rome. This
claim extends to all matters of faith, morals, and discipline in the
Church, and is based on an interpretation of Matt. xvi. 18, xxviii. 19;
Eph. iv. 11-16, and other passages. It is held that the Church is
incapable of embracing any false doctrine from whatever quarter
suggested, and that she is guided by the Divine Spirit in actively
opposing heresy, in teaching all necessary truth, and in deciding all
relative matters of controversy. Infallibility is not claimed in
connection with matters of fact, science, or general opinion. The seat of
infallibility has been much disputed even in the Roman Catholic Church
itself, and the infallibility of the Pope was only decreed so recently as
the Vatican Council in 1870. It was always agreed that where the Pope and
Bishops were unanimous they were infallible, and their unanimity might be
expressed either in a general council, or in a decree of a local council
tacitly accepted by the Pope and the rest of the Church, or even in a
decree of the Pope alone if the bishops either expressly or tacitly
affirmed it. But the Vatican Council decided "that when the Roman Pontiff
speaks _ex cathedrâ_--that is, when he, using his office as pastor and
doctor of all Christians, in virtue of his apostolic office, defines a
doctrine of faith and morals to be held by the whole Church--he by the
Divine assistance, promised to him by the blessed Peter, possesses that
infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer was pleased to invest His
Church in the definition of doctrine in faith or morals, and that
therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable in their
own nature and not because of the consent of the Church." The Greek
Church puts forward a moderate claim to _inerrancy_, holding that as a
matter of fact those councils which she regards as oecumenical have not
erred in their decrees affecting faith and morals.
INFANTE, INFANTA, the titles given respectively to the royal princes
and princesses of Spain and Portugal.
INFERI, the name given by the Latins to the nether world and the
gods of it.
INFERNO, the hell of Dante, represented as included in nine circles,
of which the first six, constituting the uppermost hell, are occupied by
those who cannot govern themselves yet have no mind to harm any one else,
of which the seventh, constituting the mid-hell, is occupied by those who
cannot govern their thoughts, and of which the eighth and ninth,
constituting the nether hell, are occupied by those who have wilfully
done harm to other people, those in the eighth in hot blood and those in
the ninth or lowest in cold blood, the former in passion and the latter
without passion, far down _below_ the freezing-point. See Ruskin's "Fors
Clavigera," more fully, and by way of authority for this.
INFLECTION, the name given to the changes in the end of words to
indicate relations, not so common in English--being usually expressed
among us by prepositions--as in Latin, Greek, and other languages, but
occurring in English as king's, mine, ours, to indicate possession;
inflection in nouns is called declension, and in verbs conjugation.
INFLUENZA, an epidemic disease, closely resembles, but is quite
distinct from, cold in the head. It is characterised by early and marked
debility and depression; though usually of short duration, attacks must
not be disregarded; fatal results often ensue on carelessness.
Convalescence is slow, and complications may ensue. The cause of the
malady is obscure; sporadic cases always occur, but from time to time
great epidemics of this disease have travelled westward over the world.
Their movement seems to depend on atmospheric conditions, but is
independent of the season of the year and often contrary to the direction
of the wind. Visitations occurred in Britain in 1837-38, 1847-48, and
1889-91.
INFRALAPSARIANS, those Calvinists who believe that election and
predestination are subsequent to the Fall, while the Supralapsarians
believe that these ordinations are as old as eternity.
INFUSORIA, a name given to certain classes of animalculæ engendered
in stagnant water infused with decaying organic matter.
INGELOW, JEAN, poetess and novelist, born at Boston, Lincolnshire,
died at Kensington; her earliest work appeared anonymously, but a volume
of verses under her name was successful in 1863; her poetry is chiefly
religious and devotional; later she wrote for children; subsequently she
turned to novels, and produced besides several others "Off the Skelligs"
in 1872; she will be remembered for her ballad "High Tide on the Coast of
Lincolnshire," and a song "Supper at the Mill" (1820-1897).
INGEMANN, BERNHARD SEVERIN, a Danish poet and novelist; in the
latter regard took Scott for his model, his subjects being historical;
was a man of varied literary ability (1789-1862).
INGLEBY, CLEMENT MANSFIELD, Shakespearian scholar, born near
Birmingham, passed from Cambridge, where he graduated in 1847, to
practise as a solicitor, but abandoned law for literature in 1859; his
early works were of a philosophical nature, but he is best known as the
author of a long series of works on Shakespearian subjects, of which "The
Shakespeare Fabrications" was the first and "Shakespeare: the Man and the
Book" the chief; he was a Vice-President of the Royal Society of
Literature (1823-1886).
INGLESANT, JOHN, a celebrated romance by J. H. Shorthouse.
INGLIS, SIR JAMES, a Fifeshire gentleman, who in the reign of James
IV. distinguished himself against the English and was knighted; author of
"Complaint of Scotland"; _d_. 1554.
INGLIS, SIR JOHN, English general; entered the army at 19, served in
Canada in 1837; was sent to India, and distinguished himself in the
Punjab in 1848; at the outbreak of the Mutiny was stationed at Lucknow,
where he heroically defended the residency for 87 days till the relief of
the city by Havelock and Outram (1814-1862).
INGLIS, SIR ROBERT HARRY, Conservative statesman, opposed every
Liberal measure of the period, from that of Catholic Emancipation to the
Abolition of the Corn Laws (1786-1855).
INGOLDSBY, THOMAS, the pseudonym of REV. RICHARD BARHAM (q. v.),
author of "Ingoldsby Legends," a collection of humorous tales in
verse.
INGOLSTADT (16), a Bavarian town and fortress on the Danube, 50 m.
N. of Münich, has many ancient associations; once the seat of a
university; its manufactures now are beer, cannon, gunpowder; salt is
mined in the vicinity.
INGRAHAM, JOSEPH HOLT, author of "The Prince of the House of David,"
born at Portland, Maine; after some years spent at sea, became a teacher
of languages in Mississippi, and was ordained Episcopal clergyman in
1855; prior to his ordination he wrote stories of adventure, "Captain
Kyd," &c., but subsequently confined himself to biblical subjects
(1809-1860).
INGRES, JEAN DOMINIQUE AUGUSTE, a great French painter, born at
Montauban; studied in Paris; in 1806 went to Rome, and 14 years after to
Florence, but became professor of Fine Arts at the Academy in Paris in
1824; wounded by hostile criticisms he left Paris for Rome again in 1834,
where he became Director of the French Academy in Rome; in 1841 he
returned to Paris, where he died; he followed his master David in his
choice of classical subjects, but his work met with varied reception, now
favourable, now the reverse; the "Portrait of Cherubini," and other
pictures, however, won for him great admiration in his later days; he was
made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour (1781-1867).
INGULPH, abbot of Croyland, long credited with the authorship of a
history of the monastery, which has since been proved to be a fabrication
of a later date, of probably the 13th or 14th century; he was appointed
abbot in 1080; _d_. 1109.
INKERMANN, a small Tartar village E. of Sebastopol harbour; the
scene of a battle between the Russians and allied forces, to the defeat
of the former after a prolonged struggle on 5th November 1854.
INNER TEMPLE. See INNS OF COURT.
INNES, COSMO, lawyer and antiquary, born at Durris, of an old Scotch
family; professor of History in Edinburgh University; author of "Scotland
in the Middle Ages," "Lectures on Scotch Legal Antiquities," and
"Sketches of Early Scotch History" (1798-1874).
INNES, THOMAS (FATHER INNES) Scotch historian, born in
Aberdeenshire, educated at Paris; became a priest in 1692; after three
years' service in Banffshire he returned to Paris, where he held a
scholastic appointment till his death; in politics a Jacobite, in
religious matters he had leanings to the Jansenist heresy; a diligent
student of Scottish history, he produced the earliest scientific
Scoto-historical works; his "Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of
Scotland" and "Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland"
(unfinished), display honesty and penetration (1662-1744).
INNISFAIL, an ancient name of Ireland.
INNOCENT, the name of 13 popes: INNOCENT I., Pope from 402 to
417; INNOCENT II., pope from 1130 to 1143; INNOCENT III., Pope
from 1198 to 1216; INNOCENT IV., Pope from 1243 to 1254; INNOCENT
V., Pope in 1276; INNOCENT VI., Pope from 1352 to 1362, resided
at Avignon; INNOCENT VII., Pope from 1404 to 1406; INNOCENT
VIII., Pope from 1484 to 1492; INNOCENT IX., Pope in 1591;
INNOCENT X., Pope from 1644 to 1655, condemned Jansenism; INNOCENT
XI., Pope from 1676 to 1689; INNOCENT XII., Pope from 1691 to
1700; INNOCENT XIII., Pope from 1721 to 1724; of these there were
two of note.
INNOCENT III., the greatest of the name, born in Arragon; succeeded
Celestine III.; extended the territorial power of the Church, and made
nearly all Christendom subject to its sway; essayed the recovery of
Palestine, and promoted a crusade against the Albigenses; excommunicated
Otto IV., emperor of Germany; put England under an interdict, and deposed
King John; was zealous for the purity as well as supremacy of the Church,
and countenanced every movement that contributed to enhance its influence
and stereotype its beliefs as well as its forms of worship,
transubstantiation among the one and auricular confession among the
other; though harsh, and even cruel, to those whom he conceived to be the
enemies of the faith, he was personally a man of blameless life, and did
much to reform the morals of the clergy.
INNOCENT XI., succeeded Clement X., is celebrated for his contest
with Louis XIV., and as giving occasion thereby to a protest of the
Gallican clergy, and a declaration on their part of what is known as the
GALLICAN LIBERTIES (q. v.), and for a further contest he had
with Louis in regard to certain immunities claimed, to the scandal of the
Church, by foreign ambassadors residing in Rome, an interference which
Louis resented on behalf of his representatives among them, but, as it
happened in vain.
INNOCENTS, THE HOLY, FEAST OF, a festival celebrated in the Western
Church on the 28th December and in the Eastern on the 29th, to
commemorate the slaughter by Herod of the children at Bethlehem from two
years old and under, and who have from the earliest times been included
among the holy martyrs of the Church.
INNS OF COURT, are four voluntary societies--Lincoln's Inn, the
Inner and the Middle Temple, and Gray's Inn--with whom rests the
exclusive right to call men to the English bar; they provide lectures and
hold examinations in law, and they have discretionary powers to refuse
admission to the bar or to expel and disqualify persons of unsuitable
character from it; each Inn possesses considerable property, a dining
hall, library, and chapel, and is subject to the jurisdiction of an
irresponsible, self-elective body of Benchers, who are usually judges or
senior counsel; these societies originated in the 13th century, when the
practice of law passed out of the hands of the clergy.
INNSBRUCK (23), on the Inn, at the head of the Brenner Pass, 100 m.
S. of Münich; is the capital of the Austrian Tyrol, an ancient and
beautiful town, rich in art treasures, with a university and manufactures
of woollen cloth, glass ware, and stained glass.
INO, the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, the wife of Athamas, king
of Thebes, who was changed into a sea-deity as she fled for refuge from
her husband, who had gone raving mad and sought her life.
INOCULATION is the introduction of disease germs into the system,
usually by puncture of the skin or hypodermic injection; many diseases so
introduced assume a mild form, and render the subject not liable to the
severe form. Inoculation for smallpox, the virus being taken from actual
smallpox pustules, was practised by the ancient Brahmans and by the
Chinese 600 years before Christ, and its practice continued in the East.
It was introduced to this country from Turkey in 1717, and extensively
practised until superseded by Jenner's discovery of vaccination at the
end of the century, and finally prohibited by law in 1840. Inoculation
has been found successful in the prevention of other diseases, notably
anthrax, hydrophobia, and recently malaria.
INQUISITION, an ecclesiastical tribunal established in 1248 under
Pope Innocent IV., and set up successively in Italy, Spain, Germany, and
the S. of France, for the trial and punishment of heretics, of which that
established in Spain achieved the greatest notoriety from the number of
victims it sacrificed, and the remorseless tortures to which they were
subjected, both when under examination to extort confession and after
conviction. The rigour of its action began to abate in the 17th century,
but it was not till 1835, after frequent attempts to limit its power and
suppress it, that it was abolished in Spain. Napoleon suppressed it in
France in 1808, and after an attempted revival from 1814 to 1820, its
operations there came to an end. ST. DOMINIC (q. v.) has the
credit of having invented the institution by the zeal which animated him
for the orthodoxy of the Church.
INSANITY. See INSPIRATION.
INSPIRATION, an earnest, divinely-awakened, soul-subduing sense and
perception of the presence of the invisible in the visible, of the
infinite in the finite, of the ideal in the real, of the divine in the
human, and, in ecstatic moments, of very God in man, accompanied with a
burning desire to impart to others the vision revealed; distinguished as
"seraphic" from insanity as "demonic" by this, that the inspired man sees
an invisible which is there, and the insane an invisible which is _not_
there, states of mind so like otherwise that the one may be, and often
is, mistaken for the other, the inspired man taken for an insane, and the
insane man for an inspired.
INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. According to one view the Scriptures
are throughout verbally inspired, and every word in them dictated by the
Spirit of God; according to another, though they are not verbally
inspired, they contain a record of divine things written under divine
inspiration; according to a third, though not written under divine
inspiration in any part, they contain a faithful record of a divine
revelation; and according to a fourth, they contain a record merely of
what a succession of God-fearing men in sympathy with each other and
their race saw and felt to be the clear purpose of God in His providence
of the world.
INSPIRED IDIOT, Horace Walpole's name for Oliver Goldsmith.
INSTITUTE OF FRANCE was established by the Directory in 1795, to
take the place of the four academies suppressed by the Convention two
years previously. In 1816 Louis XVIII. gave back the old names to its
four sections, viz. _L'Académie Française, L'Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-lettres, L'Académie des Sciences_, and _L'Académie des Beaux
Arts_. In 1832 was added _L'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques_.
Each academy has its own separate organisation and work, and participates
besides in the advantages of the common library, archives, and funds.
Election, which is in every case subject to government confirmation, is
by ballot, and every member receives an annual salary of at least 1500
francs. Government votes a sum of money annually to the Institute.
Members of the French Academy have special duties and privileges, and in
some cases special remuneration. They allot every year prizes for
eloquence and poetry; a prize "to the poor Frenchman who has done the
most virtuous action throughout the year," and one to the Frenchman "who
has written and published the book most conducive to good morals."
Membership in the Académie Française is strictly limited to 40 Frenchmen.
The others have, besides, from 40 to 70 members each, also Associate,
foreign and corresponding, members. The Institute centralises the pursuit
of all branches of knowledge and art, and has been the model of similar
national institutes in Madrid, Lisbon, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg.
INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, a celebrated work of Calvin's,
in exposition of the doctrines of the French Protestants, hence called
Calvinists in France. See CALVIN.
INTAGLIO, name given to a gem with a design incised in the surface.
INTELLECT, the faculty of clear and decisive intelligence, or of
instant and sure perception.
INTERLAKEN (2), a small town, a pretty place, on the Aar, in
Switzerland, "between the lakes" Thun and Brienz; it is near to some of
the finest Swiss scenery, and is a famous health resort, and visited
annually by 25,000 tourists.
INTERNATIONAL, THE, a secret socialistic organisation, the outcome
of the teaching of Karl Marx, which, though it has changed its name, has
wide-spread ramifications throughout Europe, the object of which appears
to be the emancipation of labour, and the assertion everywhere of the
sovereign rights of the working-man, to the extinction of all merely
national and class interests.
INTUITION, a name given to _immediate_ knowledge, as distinct from
_mediate_ or inferential knowledge, and which is matter of consciousness
or direct perception.
INTUS-SUSCEPTION, a displacement of the bowel, in which a higher
portion becomes folded or telescoped into a lower; is a frequent cause of
obstruction, and a serious, though not always fatal, condition; the term
is also applied to the process by which nutriment is absorbed and becomes
part of the system.
INVALIDES, HÔTEL DES, an institution in Paris, founded by Louis XIV.
in 1674, for retired court servants and invalided soldiers; the church,
the nave of which is adorned with military trophies, is surmounted by a
majestic dome, under which the remains of Napoleon were deposited in
1840.
INVERARAY, county town of Argyllshire, on the NW. shore of Loch
Fyne, close to which is the castle, the residence of the Duke of Argyll.
INVERNESS (21), county town of Inverness-shire and capital of the
Northern Highlands, is situated on the Ness, near the Moray Firth, amid
picturesque surroundings, is rich in interesting memories; has several
public institutions, several manufactures, and a considerable trade; the
inhabitants are distinguished for the purity of their English.
INVERNESS-SHIRE (90), the largest county in Scotland, stretches from
the Moray Firth to the Atlantic, and includes many islands, Skye, the
Outer Hebrides (except Lewis), and others; it embraces a large part of
the Highlands, is very mountainous, has many glens and lochs, but little
fertile land; there are large deer forests, grouse moors, and sheep runs;
Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles (4406 ft.), is in
this county.
INVISIBLE, THE, He who or that which cannot be seen, felt, handled,
or even conceived of, and yet who or which _is_, and _alone is_, as no
one, as nothing else can be.
IO, in the Greek mythology a daughter of INACHOS (q. v.),
beloved by Zeus, whom Hera out of jealousy changed into a heifer and set
the hundred-eyed Argus to watch, but when Zeus had by Hermes slain the
watcher, Hera sent a gadfly to goad over the world, over which she ranged
distractedly till she reached Egypt, where Osiris married her, and was in
connection with him worshipped as Isis.
IODINE, a non-metallic element originally obtained from kelp, but
now found in South America in combination with sodium, used largely both
free and in combination in medicine and surgery, in photography, and in
making aniline dyes.
IODOFORM, a crystalline substance similar to chloroform in
composition, only in it iodine takes the place of chlorine; it is used in
surgery as an antiseptic.
IOLCUS, a town in Thessaly, the port from which the Argonauts sailed
in quest of the Golden Fleece.
ION, in the Greek mythology son of Apollo by Creusa, and exposed by
her in the cave where she bore him, but who was conveyed by the god to
Delphi and educated by a priestess, and was afterwards owned by his
mother, and became the ancestor of the Ionians, her husband, Xuthus,
being kept throughout in the dark.
IONA, a fertile little island 1½ m. W. of Mull, where St. Columba
landed from Ireland A.D. 563, and built a monastery which was for
centuries the centre of ecclesiastical life and missionary enterprise
among the Scots of Scotland and Ireland and the Angles of the N. of
England. It is 3½ m. long and 1½ broad.
IONIA, ancient name of the western districts of Asia Minor between
the Hermus and the Mæander, with adjacent islands; was colonised by
Greeks 1050 B.C., and its chief cities, including Miletus, Ephesus,
Samos, Chios, and later Smyrna, formed the Ionian League; the Ionians
were noted for wealth, art, and luxury; coming under Persian yoke in 557
B.C. they deserted to Greece 479 B.C., in the great war, and became
again independent; from 387 B.C. they were again under Persia till
Alexander the Great took them and merged their history in that of the
surrounding peoples.
IONIAN ISLANDS (250), a chain of forty mountainous islands lying off
the W. coast of Greece, the largest being Corfu (78), Santa Maura (25),
Cephalonia (80), and Zante (44). The climate is good, and there is much
fertile soil in the valleys except in Cephalonia; corn, grapes, and
currants are grown; sulphur and coal are found in Corfu; their history
has been very chequered; after belonging at different times to Venice,
France and Turkey, they were seized by Britain and constituted a
dependency in 1815; never satisfied with British rule, they were a source
of constant friction which Mr. Gladstone's mission in 1858 was
insufficient to allay, and were handed over to Greece in 1863.
IONIC ORDER, an order of Grecian architecture, characterised by the
volute of its capital in the form of a ram's horn, and in which the
cornice is dentated, the shaft fluted, and the entablature plain or
embellished.
IONIC SCHOOL, the name of the earliest of the schools of philosophy
in Greece, the prominent members of which were natives of Ionia, one and
all of whom traced the beginning or basis of things back to the action of
some physical agent, such as water, air, fire, &c., and among whom are
reckoned such men as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus.
IOWA (1,754), one of the United States, on the right bank of the
Mississippi River, with Minnesota to the N. and Missouri to the S., and
the Missouri River on its western border; is well watered, very fertile,
and, though liable to extremes of temperature, very healthy; agriculture
flourishes, the country being an undulating plain and most of the soil
being arable; cereals and root crops are raised, cattle fed; there are
poultry and dairy farms; coal, gypsum, and lead are mined; manufactures
include mill products, canned meats, and agricultural implements; general
education in the State is advanced, State policy in this respect being
liberal; Iowa was admitted to the Union, 1846; Des Moines (32) is the
capital; Iowa (7) is the seat of the State University and of some
flour-mills and factories.
IPHICRATES, a famous Athenian general, the son of a shoemaker,
celebrated throughout Greece for his defeat of the Spartans in 392, as
well as for other great military exploits, for which he was rewarded by
his countrymen with almost unprecedented honours; _d_. 348 B.C.
IPHIGENIA, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; her father
having killed a favourite deer belonging to Artemis in Aulis as he was
setting out for Troy, the goddess was offended, and CALCHAS (q. v.),
when consulted, told him she could only be appeased by the
sacrifice of his daughter; this he proceeded to do, but as he was
preparing to offer her up the goddess descended in a cloud, carried her
off to Tauris, and made her a priestess in her temple. The story has been
dramatised by Euripides, Racine, and Geothe.
IPSUS, a small town in Phrygia, the scene of a great contest between
the generals of Alexander for succession to the empire.
IPSWICH (57), a town in Suffolk, on the Orwell, 12 m. from the sea;
is an old town, and has a number of interesting, as well as some
old-fashioned, buildings; is well provided with churches and educational
establishments, and was the birthplace of Cardinal Wolsey; manufactures
agricultural implements, and exports besides these leather, oil, coke and
agricultural produce.
IQUIQUE (16), important seaport in the N. of Chili; exports
nitrates, iodine, and silver.
IRAK-ARABI, ancient Babylonia watered by the Euphrates and the
Tigris.
IRAN, the ancient name or plateau of Asia, extending N. and S.
between the Hindu Kush and the Persian Gulf, and E. and W. between the
Indus and Kurdistan; inhabited by the Aryans; is the official name for
Persia.
IRANIANS, the inhabitants of Iran, a people constituting an
important branch of the Indo-European family, including the Persians,
Medes, &c.
IRAWADI, a river, navigable throughout its whole course, formed by
the union of two streams from the mountains of Thibet; flows S. through
Burma 700 miles, passing Mandalay, and falling into the Bay of Bengal in
a delta, on one branch of which stands Rangoon.
IRELAND (5,175), an island rather more than half the size of and
lying to the west of England and Wales, from which it is divided by the
North Channel (13 m. wide), the Irish Sea (140 m.), and the St. George's
Channel (50 m.). It consists of a large undulating plain in the centre,
containing extensive bogs, several large loughs--Neagh, the Erne, Allen,
Derg, drained by the rivers Shannon, Barrow, Liffey, and Boyne, and
surrounded on almost all sides by maritime highlands, of which those on
the SW., NW., and E. are the highest. The N. and W. coasts are rugged and
much indented. The climate is milder, more equable, and somewhat more
rainy than that of England; but the cereal and green crops are the same.
Flax is grown in the N. The tendency is to revert to pasturage however,
agriculture being generally in a backward state. Unfavourable land-laws,
small holdings, and want of capital have told heavily against the Irish
peasantry. Fisheries are declining. The chief manufacture is linen in
Belfast and other Ulster towns. Irish exports consist of dairy produce,
cattle, and linen, and are chiefly to Great Britain. Primary education is
largely supported by government grants; there are many excellent schools
and colleges; the chief universities are Dublin and the Royal (an
examining body only). In Ulster the Protestants slightly outnumber the
Roman Catholics, in all other parts the Roman Catholics are in a vast
majority. Ireland was occupied by Iberian peoples in prehistoric times;
these were conquered and absorbed by Celtic tribes; many kingdoms were
set up, and strife and confusion prevailed. There was Christianity in the
island before St. Patrick crossed from Strathclyde in the 5th century.
Invasions by Danes, 8th to 10th centuries, and conquest by Normans under
Henry II. 1162-1172, fomented the national disquiet. Under Tudor and
Stuart rule the history of the country is a long story of faction and
feud among the chiefs and nobles, of rebellions, expeditions, massacres,
and confiscations. Sympathy with the Stuarts brought on it the scourge of
Cromwell (1649) and the invasion by William III. Thereafter the penal
laws excluded Roman Catholics from Parliament. The union of the Irish
with the British Parliament took place in 1801. Catholic disabilities
were removed 1829. An agitation for the repeal of the Union was begun in
1842 by Daniel O'Connell, and carried on by the Fenian movement of 1867
and the Home Rule movement led by Charles Parnell. A Home Rule bill was
lost in the Commons in 1886, and another in the Lords in 1893. The Church
of Ireland (Protestant Episcopal) was disestablished in 1871. Since the
Union the executive has been in the hands of a lord-lieutenant,
secretary, and council appointed by the Crown. Ireland is far behind
Great Britain in wealth, and its population has been steadily declining.
IRELAND, SAMUEL WILLIAM HENRY, a notorious forger of Shakespearian
relics, born in London, son of a dealer in old books and prints; imposed
on his father and a number of lovers of the antique, till he was exposed
by Malone; he published a confession of his forgeries, and died in
obscurity and poverty (1777-1835).
IRENÆUS, one of the Fathers of the Church; was bishop of Lyons, and
suffered martyrdom about 202; had been a disciple of Polycarp; wrote
against the Gnostics in a work in Greek, which all to a few fragments in
Latin is lost.
IRE`NE, the daughter of Zeus and Themis, the Greek goddess of peace;
she was an object of worship both in Athens and Rome, is represented as
holding in her left arm a cornucopia, and in her right hand an olive
branch.
IRENE, empress of Constantinople, born in Athens, a poor orphan
girl, famous for her beauty, her talents, and her crimes; was banished to
Lesbos, where she maintained herself by spinning; has been canonised by
the Greek Church for her zeal in image worship (752-803).
IRETON, HENRY, born at Altenborough, Notts; graduated at Cambridge
1629, and studied law; on outbreak of Civil War he joined the
Parliamentarian party, and marrying Cromwell's daughter acquired great
influence; took a leading part in the prosecution of the king, was one of
his judges, and signed the warrant for his execution; kept by Cromwell in
Ireland in 1650, he proved a stern deputy, and died of the plague before
Limerick; he was a man of great vigour of character, whose zeal for
justice made him almost cruel (1611-1651).
IRIDIUM, a metallic elementary body of rare occurrence, and found in
the ores of platinum.
IRIS, the daughter of Thaumus (i. e. wonder) and of the ocean
nymph Electra (i. e. splendour); was the goddess of the rainbow, and as
such the messenger of the gods, particularly of Zeus and Hera, the
appearance of the rainbow being regarded as a sign that communications of
good omen were passing between heaven and earth, as it was to Noah that
they would continue to be kept up; she is represented as dressed in a
long wide tunic, over which hangs a light upper garment, and with golden
wings on her shoulders.
IRKUTSK (421), a central Siberian province, separated from China by
the Sayan Mountains; it has Lake Baikal on the E., Yenisei and Yakutsk on
the W. and N.; a rich pastoral country, watered by the navigable rivers
Angara and the Lena, agriculture, cattle rearing are prosperous
industries; there are gold, iron, and salt mines; one-third of the
population are forced colonists; the capital, Irkutsk (45), is the seat
of government for Eastern Siberia, an ecclesiastical centre, and the
chief emporium of commerce; it is the finest city in Siberia.
IRMIN, a Teutonic tribal deity; was honoured by wooden pillars with
his image on the top, greatly reverenced by the people; the constellation
"The Plough" was known as "Irmin's Chariot."
IRON AGE, the last of the three stages, stone, bronze, iron, which
mark the prehistoric development of most now civilised peoples; these, of
course, occurred at different periods, and were of different duration in
different cases; they are named from the material employed in making
cutting instruments and weapons; the forms of instruments are freer than
in the bronze period, and rectilineal gives places to free curvilineal
decoration; this age is marked, too, by the introduction of writing and
the beginning of literary and historic records. See AGES.
IRON CITY, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, from its numerous iron-works.
IRON CROWN, the crown of the ancient Lombard kings, a golden circlet
studded with jewels, and so called as enclosing a ring of iron said to
have been one of the nails of the cross, beaten out; Napoleon had it
brought from Monza, and crowned himself with it as king of Italy. It is
now in Vienna.
IRON DUKE, Duke of Wellington, from his iron will, it is surmised.
IRON GATE, the name given to dangerous rapids in the Danube at
Orsova, as it issues out of Hungary.
IRON HAND, GOETZ VON BERLICHINGEN (q. v.).
IRON MASK, MAN WITH THE, a prisoner who in the reign of Louis XIV.
wore, when he was transferred from prison to prison, what seemed an iron
mask to prevent any one discovering and revealing his identity, over
which to this day there hangs an impenetrable veil; he is reported to
have been young and of noble form, and the conclusion is that he was a
man of distinction.
IRONCLADS were originally wooden vessels protected by iron plates;
they were used at the siege of Gibraltar in 1782; the French had them in
the Crimean War, and in 1858 built four iron-plated line-of-battle ships;
in 1860 England built the _Warrior_, an iron steam battleship with
4½-inch plates; since then new types have succeeded each other very
quickly; the modern ironclad is built of steel and armed with steel
plates sometimes 2 feet thick; the term is now loosely applied to all
armoured vessels, whether battleships, or cruisers, or gunboats, and
whether of iron or steel.
IRONSIDES, Cromwell's troopers, a thousand strong, and raised by him
in the Eastern counties of England, so called at first from the
invincibility displayed by them at Marston Moor; were selected by
Cromwell "as men," he says, "that had the fear of God before them, and
made conscience of what they did.... They were never beaten," he adds,
"and wherever they were engaged against the enemy, they beat
continually."
IRONY is a subtle figure of speech in which, while one thing is
said, some indication serves to show that quite the opposite is meant;
thus apparent praise becomes severe condemnation or ridicule; practical
irony is evinced in ostensibly furthering some one's hopes and wishes
while really leading him to his overthrow. Life and history are full of
irony in the contrast between ambitions and their realisation.
IRONY, SOCRATIC, the name given to a practice of Socrates with
pretentious people; "affecting ignorance and pretending to solicit
information, he was in the habit of turning round upon the sciolist and
confounding his presumption, both by the unlooked-for consequences he
educed by his incessant questions and by the glaring contradictions the
other was in the end landed by his admissions."
IROQUOIS, one of the most intelligent branches of the North American
Indians, comprised a confederation of five, afterwards six, tribes, among
whom the leading place was taken by the Mohawks; their territory lay
inland in what is now New York State and the basin of the St. Lawrence.
Numbering some 25,000, they maintained their own against the hereditary
foes by whom they were surrounded; they took kindly to English and Dutch
settlers, but were hostile to the French, and in the wars of the 18th
century were allies of England against the French; their descendants,
about 12,000, in reservations in Canada and New York are a peaceful
people, have accepted English religion and culture, and have proved
themselves skilful and industrious agriculturists.
IRREDUCIBLE CASE, name given to a cubic equation which cannot be
solved by the rule of CARDAN (q. v.).
IRTISH, an enormous river of Western Siberia and chief tributary of
the Obi; its course from the Altai Mountains runs NW. through the
Siberian plains for 1200 m.; it is navigable almost all the way in
summer, and in winter it is a highway for sledge traffic; on its banks
stand Semipalatinsk, Omsk, and Tobolsk.
IRVING, EDWARD, a great pulpit orator, born in Annan, Dumfriesshire;
bred for the Scotch Church, became in 1819 assistant to Dr. Chalmers in
Glasgow, and removed in 1822 to the Caledonian Church, London, where he
attracted to his preaching the world of fashion as well as intellect in
the city, who soon grew tired of him and left him, after which he took to
extravagances which did not draw them back, and drew around him instead a
set of people more fanatical than himself, and whose influence over him,
to which he weakly yielded, infatuated him still more; the result was
that he was deposed from the ministry of the Church that sent him forth,
and became for a time the centre of an organisation which still exists,
in a modified form, and bears his name; he was the bosom friend in his
early days of Thomas Carlyle, and no one mourned more over his aberration
than he, for he loved him to the end. "But for Irving," he says, "I had
never known what the communion of man with man means. His was the freest,
brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever came in contact with; I call
him on the whole the best man I have ever, after trial enough, found in
this world, or now hope to find. Scotland sent him forth," he says, "a
herculean man, but our mad Babylon wore him and wasted him with all her
engines, and it took her 12 years"; he died in Glasgow, aged 42, "hoary
as with extreme age," and lies buried in a crypt of the cathedral there
(1792-1834).
IRVING, SIR HENRY (John Henry Brodribb), born near Glastonbury; was
at first a clerk in London, appeared on the Sunderland stage in 1856,
spent three years in Edinburgh, and gradually worked his way at Glasgow
and Manchester, till he was invited to London ten years afterwards; his
performance of Hamlet at the Lyceum in 1874 established his reputation as
a tragedian; since then he has remained at the head of his profession,
and both in this country and in America secured many triumphs in Macbeth,
Shylock, and other Shakespearian characters, and in roles like those of
Matthias in "The Bells," "Mephistopheles in Faust," &c.; he has
contributed to the literature of Acting, and received knighthood in 1895:
_b_. 1838.
IRVING, WASHINGTON, popular American essayist and historian, born of
British parentage in New York, was delicate in early life; his education
suffered accordingly, and he travelled in Europe, 1804-6, visiting Italy,
France, and England; returning to New York he was called to the bar, put
he devoted himself to a literary career, only interrupted by one period
of commercial life, and occasional short terms of diplomatic service; he
first won fame by his "History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker,"
1809, a good-natured satire on the Dutch settlers; the years 1815-32 he
spent in Europe studying and writing; his "Sketch-Book," 1819-20, was
very successful, as were "Bracebridge Hall," "Tales of a Traveller," and
other volumes which followed it; going to Spain in 1826 he began his
researches in Spanish history which resulted in "The Life of Columbus,"
"The Conquest of Granada," and other works which introduced English
readers to the Spain of the 15th and 16th centuries; on his return to
America he was treated with great respect by his countrymen; declining
the honours they would have given him had he turned aside to politics, he
continued to write; among his latest works were "Mahomet and his
Successors" and a "Life of Washington"; much courted in society, he was
kind and generous in disposition; his writings are marked by humour,
observation, and descriptive power; these qualities with an excellent
style place him in the foremost rank of American authors; he died,
unmarried, at Tarrytown, New York (1783-1859).
IRVINGITES, the name given to the Catholic Apostolic Church as
founded by Edward Irving, which is repudiated by them, as disclaiming all
earthly leadership; their ministry is after the Apostolic order, includes
prophets, evangelists, and pastors, and they employ material symbols in
their worship besides those of water in baptism and wine in communion,
such as incense; the Eucharist they regard as a sacrifice, and they
believe in the permanency of the spiritual gifts of the primitive Church.
ISAAC, a Hebrew patriarch, son of Abraham, born to him when he was
old; a mild man with no great force of character, and a contrast to
Ishmael, his half-brother; lived to a great age.
ISSAC I., COMNENUS, Emperor of the East from 1057 to 1059; raised to
the throne by the army; ruled well, but falling ill and fearing he had
not long to live. He retired and spent his two remaining years in a
monastery; he was a student and annotator of Homer.
ISSAC II., ANGELUS, Emperor of the East; a good man, but weak;
became emperor in 1185, was dethroned by his brother Alexis in 1195;
reinstated by the Crusaders in 1203, but overthrown six months after in
1204.